On the Job is brought to you by Express Employment Professionals. Express Employment Professionals as a leading staffing provider that employs nearly six hundred thousand people annually across more than eight hundred franchise locations in the US, Canada, and South Africa. Our long term goal is at the heart of our company's mission to help as many people as possible find good jobs. By helping as many clients as possible find good people. It takes more than just online searches to land a job. It takes real people who will identify your talents, a person invested in your success. Express Employment Professionals understands what it takes to land a new position at a top employer or start a new career in today's job market. Express Noose Jobs, Get to no Express, Go to expresspros dot com. Welcome to on the Job. This season, we're bringing you stories about people finding their professional stride by virtue of who they know, whether it's breathing new life into an age old profession, taking the reins in a family business, forging your own path with a new idea, or landing the perfect job doing something you'd never before even considered. For this episode of On the Job something a little different love stories, stories of people who found jobs that led them to the person that they would fall madly in love with. We have four stories today, from a young couple who became local legends after their lives collided at a cracker barrel, to a forty three year marriage that started in the offices of a power company. While I am not outright condoning workplace romance, today I proudly share with you these stories of love on the job. For our first story, Bayla and Matt, who live in Burlington, Vermont. Now we did something a little different here. Instead of me interviewing them, I had them interview each other. What led you to apply for the job that you applied for ten years ago. This summer ten years ago, I was managing an art handling company in Seattle. I was fantasizing about a change in my life. And then one day one of my co workers came in and showed me this ad that he found on the Internet saying, you know, asking the question do you want to ride your bike across the country and have it all paid for? And I thought, that's the job for me. I can do that job. I want that job more than anything else. The job was for a New Zealand based vodka company called forty two Below as a marketing campaign. They were looking for forty two cyclists to ride across America wearing their logo and drinking their product and bars the whole way. Let's see, I had already quit my real job in New York. I'd been working in marketing for like a few years, and I was totally burned out. Balo was looking for a change too, and she did a lot of cycling on a free time. So a friend of a friend told her about this forty two below campaign and said that they were looking for more women. So she applied. And then I got the call and they're like, did a five minute interview, and they're like, great, come on this ride for two months and we'll pay you. The forty two riders came from all over the world. They started in New York and they made their way south. I remember the first time that we I mean, I like noticed you, but we didn't talk at all in New Jersey or New York, I don't think. But then the first time we had a conversation wasn't until we got down to DC. I was definitely not. I was definitely not looking for a relationship. I was neither. Well, you were in a relationship kind of not really, I'd been dating someone, but I don't know. Baylen Matt kept things cool for a while. But one night they were in a bar in Austin drinking the vodka that they were supposed to drink, and at one point they went up to the roof of the bar together and we just sat and watched the sunset and just talked, and I was like, I want to hang out with this person for as long as possible, because there is never going to be a dull moment. Most of the time during this ride, the whole group set up tents to sleep in each night. Bayla's true nature on the trip was that she never had her own tent, or she you had your own tent, but you never set it up, and so you always like, there's a lot of work to set up a tent every night. Yeah, but everybody, literally everybody else was doing it. You're the only person that wasn't like pitching your own tent. Now, a lot of people were sharing tents anyways, after making the rounds, and everyone else's tent when they were in Texas, it seemed that it was Matt's turn. You asked me if you could stay the night of my tent, And what did you think When I asked you, I wasn't totally sure that it was like flirtation or that it was for any other reason than you needed a place to stay and maybe you had worn out. You're welcome with everybody else. We got in the tent and I remember like we were just lying there next to each other, and like I wasn't sure. I mean, I definitely had a crush on you, but I wasn't sure what was going to happen. And then you grabbed my hand. We may have kissed, and then I think it's probably like for me, it's most comfortable to stay at this point that for the rest of the trip, Baila didn't sleep in anybody else's tech from there on out, from West Texas to the end of the trip in La, Yeah, the job ended. When they reached La everyone was headed back to where they came from, Matt to Seattle and Baila to New York. They visited each other back and forth until Matt moved to New York to be with Baiala. Six months after the job. They got married six years later. That was definitely the best summer job I've ever had. Yeah, that job, that job was an awesome job. It certainly was the best summer job I've had, and it definitely paved the way for the greatest job that I have in my life, which is being your husband. Certainly a labor of love. I think the pay could be a little bit better, and maybe it's time for me to get a raise. Rude, I mean, I'm just saying. I mean, I can't come to haven't I had reached the time for my review. For our next story, we head down to Virginia to meet a couple of local legends. I'm Katrina Nelson and I work at Cracker Barrel. Well, one of them. Kat's husband, Travis, was actually at work when we interviewed. He's kind of like the phantom husband because he's not really into like being out there and like public with the stuff. He's more of a private guy, So he's not been in a single interview and I kind of feel like maybe he's imaginary. They get a lot of requests for interviews, partly because their love story starts at a cracker barrel and for those of you who don't know. Cracker Barrel is a Southern country style chain restaurant. If you ever drive across country, you'll notice that Cracker Barrel seems to be the glue that holds American highways together. Kat works at the location in Christianburg, Virginia, where she and Travis first met. So. I started working at the Cracker Barrel, and I was very nervous on my first day because I wanted everybody to like me. So I was there forty five minutes early and I was just sitting in the car. I remember I had the short haircut, and I was like checking my lipstick and making sure that my hair was good. And he pulls up in parks beside me, and I was like, oh my gosh. He's kind of cute though. And he gets out of the car first and starts walking inside, and I was like, oh, I'm going to follow him. And the only thought that I have of that moment that I remember is like, Wow, he's got a great butt foundation to a great relationship. Great butts. Yeah. He was a cook and I was a server, and we fell in love in the kitchen. They were just co workers for a while before they got together. It didn't happen right away, no, because funnily enough, we were both seeing other people at the time, scandalous. I know, about a year later they started seeing each other and you guys, continue to work together. We did, and it was awesome. I know a lot of people think that, like working with your significant other is super scary, and maybe it is, but it was perfect for us. Like, I've spent almost every single day with this guy for four and a half years, working together, living together most of that time, and I don't get sick of him, So I think that's a pretty good sign. Cat and Travis got married four years ago and they decided that they were going to take all of their wedding photos at Cracker Barrel and these photos are awesome. I shared one of our wedding pictures on Instagram and tagged Cracker Barrel and it exploded. Cracker Barrel shared the picture. Then their pr reached out to me and we started sharing the story with like Southern Living. I think was the first one to grab ahold of it, and it just took off from there. Today dot Com picked up the story, NBC Boston, even Fox News had an article about them, and they became kind of locally famous, to the point where people were even coming into the restaurant in hopes of seeing them. A lot of guests were asking the servers like is the cracker barrel couple here? Like are they working today? Yeah? Four years later, they're still happy. Everything is really really great. I thought that after we got married things would be different for some reason. But it's exactly the same. And I think that's how it's supposed to be. So it's perfect. And you guys are still working together. How's that going. Unfortunately, No, he got a new job at the beginning of March, something that he couldn't pass up, and that's kind of been hard him getting a new job. That must be a big change. You look really sad. Oh everything is good now, But at first it was like it was really hard. I cried a lot. I mean, we were working the same shifts on the same days. We were always together. I'm an opener, so I go into work at five, I'm usually home by three, and then he leaves for work at five, So I see him for like forty five minutes a day now. But you gotta do what you gotta do. For now, you can rest easy knowing that the Cracker Barrel couple is happy and thriving. Did you guys have a favorite dish together at Cracker Barrel or do you have different preferences? We have different preferences, and also we don't share. Usually he gets a Country Fried's steak and I'm a huge fan of those maple onion and jamburgers. Those things are good. Oooh. I'll leave you with that. Hope you're hungry more love stories when we come back. We'll get back to the story in a second. First, a word from Express Employment Professionals. A strong work ethic takes pride in a job well done. This is you. But to get an honest day's war, you need a callback. You need a job. Express Employment Professionals can help. We'll connect you to the right company. We're committed to your success and never charge a fee to find you a job. Express Nose Jobs get to no Express find your location at expresspros dot com or on the Express Jobs app. And now back to our story. For our next story, we go to Philadelphia to meet Amanda. I'm Amanda Fight for O'Brien and I write about and teach food fermentation. Before she taught fermentation in Philly. Amanda was in grad school in Monterey, California, when she decided to well sort of go into the business of fermentation. I needed a job, like a weekend gig, and there was a opening at a tasting room, a winery tasting room, and I was like, Oh, that sounds amazing. I'll be you know, getting free wine and getting paid to like drink and talk to people about wine. This sounds amazing. So I applied for it, and I actually, like totally remember I was walking into a class and I had a message on my voicemail from this guy and like, I'm an aural person, I like sounds of things, and I was like, I really like his voice. That guy's name was Jake. His dad owned the winery. Amanda went into interview with the dad and she ended up getting the job. And when I went to pick up like the packet, the starting packet, that was the first time I met Jake. And I walked home and called my best friend and I was like, I'm totally gonna marry the guy that I just met. And I swear I'm not that person, Like I didn't ever say that I've beout anybody before him. I'm not I'm not like a particularly romantic person. I don't know. I felt a thing, and I felt like a real thing, and I was like, he had an amazing voice, he's very cute. I think like a lot of women can really tell when they've met like the nice guy, which at probably earlier times in my life that would have been less appealing. I would have been like a nice guy. But I was like, oh, nice guy, Like I'm ready for nice guy. Nice guys. Where I'm headed right now? To tell my friend that I was going to marry him when I talked to him for fifteen minutes is like insane, But turned out I was right. It was at a time in my life where I was kind of trying this whole nice guy thing. I'm just shocking. This is Jacobrien. I was the manager at SO the Boss. I had a very giant mental block towards entertaining the notion of dating one of my employees. It just felt wrong. So we were we were in a situation for a very long time where a man it was working there. Obviously affinities were developing. There was like some flirting happening, but I was really trying to not let it go past a friendly level. The tasting are employees and people who worked in the shops around the area would always get together after hours to drink and have fun. It was a motley crew and they all saw the attraction between Jake and Amanda, so they all kind of try to convince Jake to make a move, led by this charismatic older gentleman named Dawn. He was like the don one of the community. He was like seventy years old, was very charming and with like you know, just kind of like flirt with all the customers. And eventually Jake was convinced that it was okay, and he was so funny. I'm sorry, this is actually making me laugh to remember this. He he asked me out, and like without like a moments hesitation, I was like, yes, yes, I will go out with you. And then he before I'd like finished saying yes, he was like, I've invited a whole bunch of people to go. No one could make it but Don the older guy. So they all drank throughout the day enough where Jake was in no shape to drive home at the end, and either was Dawn, who slept on Amanda's couch. Yeah, so our first date ended in a slumber party with a sixty five year old man. I think he's definitely lest seventy, but everything else about that's accurate. Amanda and Jake live in Philly and they've been happily married for fourteen years. For our last love story, we go to Manhattan to meet Charlie Charles Cleary Senior and originally from Brooklyn, New York, and Raquel Riquel and do you want to know where I was born? Come away Cuba. Charlie and Riquel have been married for forty three years. They both grew up in the city and met back in nineteen seventy two. Charlie was working in the accounting department at con Edison, the energy company, and one day she came in started to work and I noticed very quickly that's one good looking babe. She had long, round hair, and she had on a platform shoes. I think it was a beige pants and a flowery blouse, and I just remember all on very nice. I remember Charlie. I don't know that I was interested in him at first, and I got to know him a little bit and I found him to be extremely annoying, and that hasn't changed much. But I also found him to be a very honest and sincere person I liked. I liked teasing him, and I would go by his desk, and he has a cleft chin, which you can't tell because of his goatee, but I would press it together and call him gulito, like it's a little butt. How'd you feel about her picking on you? I loved it. I loved it. It was attention that I was getting. They worked together for about two years before they started dating, but after they did, Charlie proposed to her. Two months later. I went to her father. Of course he said yes, and that's it. The rest is history. As they say, Even though it's been forty three years, it hasn't always been smooth sailing. We are very very different people and we come from very different cultures. Raquel's family is Cuban, Charlie's is Irish, and this ended up being a problem for Charlie's family. When I was going out with Raquel, it came across that they really didn't like her because she wasn't Irish, she wasn't Italian, she wasn't German, she was Cuban and a little bit of anachie bunker attitude. Came out from both of them, and I didn't really like it, and it got to a point where it was her or them, and I said bye bye. Yeah, it just was a racial thing with them, and and yeah, that changed our lives in a big way because he lost contact with his parents and I never wanted that for him. So that was tough. That was tough. I had no problems with it at all. You don't like it? Tough? I mean, I'm not going to give in for someone that I love very much and to have a walk away no, No. I worked for that. They lost contact with Charlie's family for eight years. They eventually started seeing each other again three years after Raquel and Charlie had their first kid, Jen, But to this day, Charlie is not very close to his family. If you had Tom, if you had to define love, how would you do that? You know, everyone is going to have a different different of the word. To me, it's compassion. It's trust the other person having feelings for you, who care for you, who attend to you when you really need it, whether it's physically or emotionally. And Raquel is everything that I've just described. That's what I tell it is respect, and just caring about each other honestly, and that's what we've done. Do you still think you're figuring stuff out? Absolutely? Absolutely. I don't think you ever completely. You know, I still wonder what's inside his naggin. Most of the time. It's always me. No, I'm I talk nice about you. Here you are talking about what's inside my head. For On the Job, I'm Otis Gray. To see pictures of all the couples in this episode, go to our website expresspros dot com slash podcast. Thanks for listening to On the Job, brought to you by Express Employment Professionals. Find out more at expresspros dot com. This season of On the Job is produced by Audiation and dread Seat Ventures. Our executive producer is Sandy Smallens. Our producer is Otis Gray. The show is mixed by Matt Noble at The Loft in Bronxville, New York. Find us on iHeartRadio and Apple Podcasts. If you liked what you heard, please consider rating or reviewing the show on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. We'll see you next time. For more inspiring stories about discovering your life's work, Audiation

On the Job is brought to you by Express Employment Professionals. Express Employment Professionals as a leading staffing provider that employs nearly six hundred thousand people annually across more than eight hundred franchise locations in the US, Canada, and South Africa. Our long term goal is at the heart of our company's mission to help as many people as possible find good jobs. By helping as many clients as possible find good people. It takes more than just online searches to land a job. It takes real people who will identify your talents, a person invested in your success. Express Employment Professionals understands what it takes to land a new position at a top employer or start a new career in today's job market. Express Noose Jobs, Get to no Express, Go to expresspros dot com. Welcome to on the Job. This season, we're bringing you stories about people finding their professional stride by virtue of who they know, whether it's breathing new life into an age old profession, taking the reins in a family business, forging your own path with a new idea, or landing the perfect job doing something you'd never before even considered. For this episode of On the Job something a little different love stories, stories of people who found jobs that led them to the person that they would fall madly in love with. We have four stories today, from a young couple who became local legends after their lives collided at a cracker barrel, to a forty three year marriage that started in the offices of a power company. While I am not outright condoning workplace romance, today I proudly share with you these stories of love on the job. For our first story, Bayla and Matt, who live in Burlington, Vermont. Now we did something a little different here. Instead of me interviewing them, I had them interview each other. What led you to apply for the job that you applied for ten years ago. This summer ten years ago, I was managing an art handling company in Seattle. I was fantasizing about a change in my life. And then one day one of my co workers came in and showed me this ad that he found on the Internet saying, you know, asking the question do you want to ride your bike across the country and have it all paid for? And I thought, that's the job for me. I can do that job. I want that job more than anything else. The job was for a New Zealand based vodka company called forty two Below as a marketing campaign. They were looking for forty two cyclists to ride across America wearing their logo and drinking their product and bars the whole way. Let's see, I had already quit my real job in New York. I'd been working in marketing for like a few years, and I was totally burned out. Balo was looking for a change too, and she did a lot of cycling on a free time. So a friend of a friend told her about this forty two below campaign and said that they were looking for more women. So she applied. And then I got the call and they're like, did a five minute interview, and they're like, great, come on this ride for two months and we'll pay you. The forty two riders came from all over the world. They started in New York and they made their way south. I remember the first time that we I mean, I like noticed you, but we didn't talk at all in New Jersey or New York, I don't think. But then the first time we had a conversation wasn't until we got down to DC. I was definitely not. I was definitely not looking for a relationship. I was neither. Well, you were in a relationship kind of not really, I'd been dating someone, but I don't know. Baylen Matt kept things cool for a while. But one night they were in a bar in Austin drinking the vodka that they were supposed to drink, and at one point they went up to the roof of the bar together and we just sat and watched the sunset and just talked, and I was like, I want to hang out with this person for as long as possible, because there is never going to be a dull moment. Most of the time during this ride, the whole group set up tents to sleep in each night. Bayla's true nature on the trip was that she never had her own tent, or she you had your own tent, but you never set it up, and so you always like, there's a lot of work to set up a tent every night. Yeah, but everybody, literally everybody else was doing it. You're the only person that wasn't like pitching your own tent. Now, a lot of people were sharing tents anyways, after making the rounds, and everyone else's tent when they were in Texas, it seemed that it was Matt's turn. You asked me if you could stay the night of my tent, And what did you think When I asked you, I wasn't totally sure that it was like flirtation or that it was for any other reason than you needed a place to stay and maybe you had worn out. You're welcome with everybody else. We got in the tent and I remember like we were just lying there next to each other, and like I wasn't sure. I mean, I definitely had a crush on you, but I wasn't sure what was going to happen. And then you grabbed my hand. We may have kissed, and then I think it's probably like for me, it's most comfortable to stay at this point that for the rest of the trip, Baila didn't sleep in anybody else's tech from there on out, from West Texas to the end of the trip in La, Yeah, the job ended. When they reached La everyone was headed back to where they came from, Matt to Seattle and Baila to New York. They visited each other back and forth until Matt moved to New York to be with Baiala. Six months after the job. They got married six years later. That was definitely the best summer job I've ever had. Yeah, that job, that job was an awesome job. It certainly was the best summer job I've had, and it definitely paved the way for the greatest job that I have in my life, which is being your husband. Certainly a labor of love. I think the pay could be a little bit better, and maybe it's time for me to get a raise. Rude, I mean, I'm just saying. I mean, I can't come to haven't I had reached the time for my review. For our next story, we head down to Virginia to meet a couple of local legends. I'm Katrina Nelson and I work at Cracker Barrel. Well, one of them. Kat's husband, Travis, was actually at work when we interviewed. He's kind of like the phantom husband because he's not really into like being out there and like public with the stuff. He's more of a private guy, So he's not been in a single interview and I kind of feel like maybe he's imaginary. They get a lot of requests for interviews, partly because their love story starts at a cracker barrel and for those of you who don't know. Cracker Barrel is a Southern country style chain restaurant. If you ever drive across country, you'll notice that Cracker Barrel seems to be the glue that holds American highways together. Kat works at the location in Christianburg, Virginia, where she and Travis first met. So. I started working at the Cracker Barrel, and I was very nervous on my first day because I wanted everybody to like me. So I was there forty five minutes early and I was just sitting in the car. I remember I had the short haircut, and I was like checking my lipstick and making sure that my hair was good. And he pulls up in parks beside me, and I was like, oh my gosh. He's kind of cute though. And he gets out of the car first and starts walking inside, and I was like, oh, I'm going to follow him. And the only thought that I have of that moment that I remember is like, Wow, he's got a great butt foundation to a great relationship. Great butts. Yeah. He was a cook and I was a server, and we fell in love in the kitchen. They were just co workers for a while before they got together. It didn't happen right away, no, because funnily enough, we were both seeing other people at the time, scandalous. I know, about a year later they started seeing each other and you guys, continue to work together. We did, and it was awesome. I know a lot of people think that, like working with your significant other is super scary, and maybe it is, but it was perfect for us. Like, I've spent almost every single day with this guy for four and a half years, working together, living together most of that time, and I don't get sick of him, So I think that's a pretty good sign. Cat and Travis got married four years ago and they decided that they were going to take all of their wedding photos at Cracker Barrel and these photos are awesome. I shared one of our wedding pictures on Instagram and tagged Cracker Barrel and it exploded. Cracker Barrel shared the picture. Then their pr reached out to me and we started sharing the story with like Southern Living. I think was the first one to grab ahold of it, and it just took off from there. Today dot Com picked up the story, NBC Boston, even Fox News had an article about them, and they became kind of locally famous, to the point where people were even coming into the restaurant in hopes of seeing them. A lot of guests were asking the servers like is the cracker barrel couple here? Like are they working today? Yeah? Four years later, they're still happy. Everything is really really great. I thought that after we got married things would be different for some reason. But it's exactly the same. And I think that's how it's supposed to be. So it's perfect. And you guys are still working together. How's that going. Unfortunately, No, he got a new job at the beginning of March, something that he couldn't pass up, and that's kind of been hard him getting a new job. That must be a big change. You look really sad. Oh everything is good now, But at first it was like it was really hard. I cried a lot. I mean, we were working the same shifts on the same days. We were always together. I'm an opener, so I go into work at five, I'm usually home by three, and then he leaves for work at five, So I see him for like forty five minutes a day now. But you gotta do what you gotta do. For now, you can rest easy knowing that the Cracker Barrel couple is happy and thriving. Did you guys have a favorite dish together at Cracker Barrel or do you have different preferences? We have different preferences, and also we don't share. Usually he gets a Country Fried's steak and I'm a huge fan of those maple onion and jamburgers. Those things are good. Oooh. I'll leave you with that. Hope you're hungry more love stories when we come back. We'll get back to the story in a second. First, a word from Express Employment Professionals. A strong work ethic takes pride in a job well done. This is you. But to get an honest day's war, you need a callback. You need a job. Express Employment Professionals can help. We'll connect you to the right company. We're committed to your success and never charge a fee to find you a job. Express Nose Jobs get to no Express find your location at expresspros dot com or on the Express Jobs app. And now back to our story. For our next story, we go to Philadelphia to meet Amanda. I'm Amanda Fight for O'Brien and I write about and teach food fermentation. Before she taught fermentation in Philly. Amanda was in grad school in Monterey, California, when she decided to well sort of go into the business of fermentation. I needed a job, like a weekend gig, and there was a opening at a tasting room, a winery tasting room, and I was like, Oh, that sounds amazing. I'll be you know, getting free wine and getting paid to like drink and talk to people about wine. This sounds amazing. So I applied for it, and I actually, like totally remember I was walking into a class and I had a message on my voicemail from this guy and like, I'm an aural person, I like sounds of things, and I was like, I really like his voice. That guy's name was Jake. His dad owned the winery. Amanda went into interview with the dad and she ended up getting the job. And when I went to pick up like the packet, the starting packet, that was the first time I met Jake. And I walked home and called my best friend and I was like, I'm totally gonna marry the guy that I just met. And I swear I'm not that person, Like I didn't ever say that I've beout anybody before him. I'm not I'm not like a particularly romantic person. I don't know. I felt a thing, and I felt like a real thing, and I was like, he had an amazing voice, he's very cute. I think like a lot of women can really tell when they've met like the nice guy, which at probably earlier times in my life that would have been less appealing. I would have been like a nice guy. But I was like, oh, nice guy, Like I'm ready for nice guy. Nice guys. Where I'm headed right now? To tell my friend that I was going to marry him when I talked to him for fifteen minutes is like insane, But turned out I was right. It was at a time in my life where I was kind of trying this whole nice guy thing. I'm just shocking. This is Jacobrien. I was the manager at SO the Boss. I had a very giant mental block towards entertaining the notion of dating one of my employees. It just felt wrong. So we were we were in a situation for a very long time where a man it was working there. Obviously affinities were developing. There was like some flirting happening, but I was really trying to not let it go past a friendly level. The tasting are employees and people who worked in the shops around the area would always get together after hours to drink and have fun. It was a motley crew and they all saw the attraction between Jake and Amanda, so they all kind of try to convince Jake to make a move, led by this charismatic older gentleman named Dawn. He was like the don one of the community. He was like seventy years old, was very charming and with like you know, just kind of like flirt with all the customers. And eventually Jake was convinced that it was okay, and he was so funny. I'm sorry, this is actually making me laugh to remember this. He he asked me out, and like without like a moments hesitation, I was like, yes, yes, I will go out with you. And then he before I'd like finished saying yes, he was like, I've invited a whole bunch of people to go. No one could make it but Don the older guy. So they all drank throughout the day enough where Jake was in no shape to drive home at the end, and either was Dawn, who slept on Amanda's couch. Yeah, so our first date ended in a slumber party with a sixty five year old man. I think he's definitely lest seventy, but everything else about that's accurate. Amanda and Jake live in Philly and they've been happily married for fourteen years. For our last love story, we go to Manhattan to meet Charlie Charles Cleary Senior and originally from Brooklyn, New York, and Raquel Riquel and do you want to know where I was born? Come away Cuba. Charlie and Riquel have been married for forty three years. They both grew up in the city and met back in nineteen seventy two. Charlie was working in the accounting department at con Edison, the energy company, and one day she came in started to work and I noticed very quickly that's one good looking babe. She had long, round hair, and she had on a platform shoes. I think it was a beige pants and a flowery blouse, and I just remember all on very nice. I remember Charlie. I don't know that I was interested in him at first, and I got to know him a little bit and I found him to be extremely annoying, and that hasn't changed much. But I also found him to be a very honest and sincere person I liked. I liked teasing him, and I would go by his desk, and he has a cleft chin, which you can't tell because of his goatee, but I would press it together and call him gulito, like it's a little butt. How'd you feel about her picking on you? I loved it. I loved it. It was attention that I was getting. They worked together for about two years before they started dating, but after they did, Charlie proposed to her. Two months later. I went to her father. Of course he said yes, and that's it. The rest is history. As they say, Even though it's been forty three years, it hasn't always been smooth sailing. We are very very different people and we come from very different cultures. Raquel's family is Cuban, Charlie's is Irish, and this ended up being a problem for Charlie's family. When I was going out with Raquel, it came across that they really didn't like her because she wasn't Irish, she wasn't Italian, she wasn't German, she was Cuban and a little bit of anachie bunker attitude. Came out from both of them, and I didn't really like it, and it got to a point where it was her or them, and I said bye bye. Yeah, it just was a racial thing with them, and and yeah, that changed our lives in a big way because he lost contact with his parents and I never wanted that for him. So that was tough. That was tough. I had no problems with it at all. You don't like it? Tough? I mean, I'm not going to give in for someone that I love very much and to have a walk away no, No. I worked for that. They lost contact with Charlie's family for eight years. They eventually started seeing each other again three years after Raquel and Charlie had their first kid, Jen, But to this day, Charlie is not very close to his family. If you had Tom, if you had to define love, how would you do that? You know, everyone is going to have a different different of the word. To me, it's compassion. It's trust the other person having feelings for you, who care for you, who attend to you when you really need it, whether it's physically or emotionally. And Raquel is everything that I've just described. That's what I tell it is respect, and just caring about each other honestly, and that's what we've done. Do you still think you're figuring stuff out? Absolutely? Absolutely. I don't think you ever completely. You know, I still wonder what's inside his naggin. Most of the time. It's always me. No, I'm I talk nice about you. Here you are talking about what's inside my head. For On the Job, I'm Otis Gray. To see pictures of all the couples in this episode, go to our website expresspros dot com slash podcast. Thanks for listening to On the Job, brought to you by Express Employment Professionals. Find out more at expresspros dot com. This season of On the Job is produced by Audiation and dread Seat Ventures. Our executive producer is Sandy Smallens. Our producer is Otis Gray. The show is mixed by Matt Noble at The Loft in Bronxville, New York. Find us on iHeartRadio and Apple Podcasts. If you liked what you heard, please consider rating or reviewing the show on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. We'll see you next time. For more inspiring stories about discovering your life's work, Audiation